This then was the occasion of my being present at about half-past seven on a January evening at the stage door of the Empresses Theatre, where a play called The Peach Girl was about to be performed. This was a drama, accompanied by music, and frequently interrupted, I believe, by amatory dances, which had already been presented nearly three hundred times and was still attracting enormous audiences. I had not myself seen it, but Ezekiel, who had witnessed a considerable portion of it before making his protest at its first performance, had particularly deplored the abbreviated costumes of most of the female dancers. He had made an exception, however, in favour of the principal actress, by whose singular beauty he had been greatly impressed, and in whom he had discerned, he thought, in spite of her surroundings, an appreciable degree of natural goodness. By name Mary Moonbeam, she had been assigned the part, it appeared, of a quite simple seller of fruit, to whom a naval officer, accompanied upon the stage by a large number of female midshipmen, had immediately begun, in a voluptuous baritone, to address words of affection.
What had happened subsequently Ezekiel did not of course know, since he had then made his protest and been compelled to leave. But he had felt assured, from the sweetness of her expression, that she had been more sinned against than sinning, and that in other surroundings she might easily have developed into an almost ideal district visitor. On the other hand, it was quite clear, from the letter-press outside the theatre, that she was the chief attraction of the play, and she had twice refused to discuss her future with our young representative at the stage door.
It was with as open a mind, therefore, as it was at all possible for me to possess in respect of an actress, that I perceived her alighting from an expensive-looking vehicle soon after I had reached the stage door. Nor was I at first able, owing to the speed of her movements—she was ten minutes later, it appeared, than usual—and the voluminous furs, in which she had ensconced herself, to obtain a clear view of her face. In fact, when I first touched her, she brushed me aside, and it was only after she had glanced at me a second time that she stopped for a moment and began to stare at me with her exceptionally limpid, hazel eyes.
“Hullo,” she said, “you’re not the same man.”
“I am the Vice-President,” I said, “of the Anti-Dramatic Union.”
“And Saltatory,” she said. “Don’t forget the Saltatory part.”
“Would that it were possible,” I replied. “But it isn’t.”
She gave a little sigh.
“No, I suppose not,” she said, “not with all us girls earning our living by it.”
“And hurling others,” I said, “to their deaths.”